new books – South Asian Studies Collective

Join us on Tuesday, April 6 from 4–5:15 pm EDT for the final event in our series this year to hear Durba Mitra (Carol K. Pforzheimer Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute | Assistant Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University) discuss her latest book, Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought (Princeton University Press, 2020).

Mitra’s work examines how so-called “deviant female sexuality” became foundational to the colonial knowledge-production project and identifies the concept of the “prostitute” as a key site for British and elite Indian men’s attempts to “know” India. Prachi Deshpande has praised the book for being “a valuable contribution to the global history of sexuality” and Omnia El Shakry calls it “an indispensable book for all scholars of gender and sexuality.”

Mingwei Huang (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Dartmouth College) and Jacqueline Wernimont (Digital Humanities and Social Engagement, and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Dartmouth College) will be joining us as discussants, and Elizabeth Lhost (History, Society of Fellows, Dartmouth College) will moderate the discussion.

All are welcome.

Support for the Conversations on South Asia series is provided by the Dartmouth Society of Fellows, the Bodas Family Academic Programming Fund, the Department of History, and the Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages Program.

Anthropology professor Sienna Craig has published The Ends of Kinship: Connecting Himalayan Lives between Nepal and New York with the University of Washington Press Global South Asia series.

The description reads:

“For centuries, people from Mustang, Nepal, have relied on agriculture, pastoralism, and trade as a way of life. Seasonal migrations to South Asian cities for trade as well as temporary wage labor abroad have shaped their experiences for decades. Yet, more recently, permanent migrations to New York City, where many have settled, are reshaping lives and social worlds. Mustang has experienced one of the highest rates of depopulation in contemporary Nepal—a profoundly visible depopulation that contrasts with the relative invisibility of Himalayan migrants in New York.

“Drawing on more than two decades of fieldwork with people in and from Mustang, this book combines narrative ethnography and short fiction to engage with foundational questions in cultural anthropology: How do different generations abide with and understand each other? How are traditions defended and transformed in the context of new mobilities? Anthropologist Sienna Craig draws on khora, the Tibetan Buddhist notion of cyclic existence as well as the daily act of circumambulating the sacred, to think about cycles of movement and patterns of world-making, shedding light on how kinship remains both firm and flexible in the face of migration. From a high Himalayan kingdom to the streets of Brooklyn and Queens, The Ends of Kinship explores dynamics of migration and social change, asking how individuals, families, and communities care for each other and carve out spaces of belonging. It also speaks broadly to issues of immigration and diaspora; belonging and identity; and the nexus of environmental, economic, and cultural transformation.”

The New Books Network calls the book

[A] beautifully rendered account of a community in flux, caught in the interstices between the remote, high-altitude landscapes of windswept Mustang and the bustling, multi-cultural cityscapes of New York City.

– New Books Network (NBN)

Listen to the complete New Books Network podcast interview here.

Professor Craig has also created a companion website with teaching resources and other materials related to the book.

Tag: new books

April 6: Conversations on South Asia with Durba Mitra

Announcement: Professor Sienna Craig publishes new book